[Mike Tobias/Reporting]
Terrorists who attacked the United States a year ago never intended to strike Nebraska. But they did. Just ask Omahan Lynn Castrianno Galante, and six Auburn volunteer firefighters. Their lives changed forever on 9-11.

[Tobias]
Every other Tuesday the three dozen members of the Auburn Volunteer Fire Department get together for a meeting or training. Tuesday, September 11th was one of those days. They watched TV coverage of the terrorist attacks and felt called to help. Many wanted to go to New York. Six were able to get away from their full-time jobs as mechanics, construction workers and security guards.

[Jim North/Auburn Volunteer Fire Dept.]
We ended up flying in Philadelphia. And from Philadelphia we flew, or we drove, flew, more or less, we called a gentleman 'Scary Harry' at ground transportation, a van they had set up. And from Philadelphia to lower Manhattan on the New Jersey turnpike we got going about 100 miles an hour.

[Russ Koerner/Auburn Volunteer Fire Dept.]
Left our suitcases in the middle of Battery Park. Everything we had. Walked down there and went to work.

[Jay Von Bergen/Auburn Volunteer Fire Dept.]
Walking in there in the dark, I've never had a feeling like that in my life.

[Tobias]
New York City firefighters called the Auburn volunteer firefighters “vollies,” but treated them like brothers. For three days they worked side-by-side - in the worst of conditions - on a pile of rubble that used to be the World Trade Center.

[Dale Thomas/Auburn Volunteer Fire Dept.]
You'd work 12-hour shifts. And then take 6 off. And then 12 on, 6 off.

[Gerrad Edwards/Auburn Volunteer Fire Dept.]
You're hearing choppers overhead, you're hearing jets flying over, you're walking into a place that basically looked like it had been bombed. To me it was just the most chilling thing.

[Thomas]
Basically you just got in lines and went on the pile of rubble. Really, when we got there it was still a search and rescue mission. There was still a good possibility that there were people still alive then.

[Koerner]
Piece at a time.

[Brian McConnaughey/Auburn Volunteer Fire Dept.]
Putting it in five gallon buckets and just handing it back down the line, then they'd sort through it and dump it in a pile, then they'd take it out in trucks.

[Koerner]
You couldn't find a big piece of rock. You couldn't find a piece of concrete. It was just all dust.

[Thomas]
The smell is probably what sticks in my mind more than anything. And I mean not only the smell of basically death and bodies decaying and bodies destroyed, but here you have a 50 square block area with no water, no sewer, no electricity, and still quite a bit of fire. I don't consider myself worthy of being called a veteran of a war. But the six of us are veterans of a war zone.

[Tobias]
After three days they walked out of that war zone exhausted. People who had lost their homes, friends and family applauded them on the way out.

[Lynn Castrianno Galante/Omaha]
This is a picture of my brother Leonard.

[Tobias]
Leonard Castrianno was Lynn's little brother. A New Yorker who loved going out on the town. The kind of guy who could tell a story and have you in tears by the punchline. Thoughtful of others, always the optimist.

[Castrianno Galante]
He was definitely the glass is half full and not the glass is half-empty. Always looking at the positive side of things. He lived for the moment. So he always was enjoying what he did.

[Tobias]
Leonard worked for Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center. Lynn watched him die from her office at Girls and Boys Town.

[Castrianno Galante]
I'm watching the TV and all the sudden that building collapses. And I'm watching this building, I'm leaning against a cubicle wall, and the thing that I most want to do is sink to the floor, to my knees. And instead I had the opposite reaction and just sort of my defenses clicked in and I stood up straighter and taller and tried to carry on a conversation.

[Castrianno Galante]
It was pretty scary, and surreal and nightmarish, just not knowing. And hoping. Kept saying, if anyone can make it out of there, Leonard can make it out.

[Tobias]
Leonard's friends put up posters and searched the city. Lynn went to New York City six days later.

[Castrianno Galante]
I took a look at the piles. The piles, the piles, the piles, and from what I could see and the smoke and the fire. My first thought was, how did they expect to find survivors in there.

[Tobias]
They never found Leonard's body.

[Tobias]
Lynn loves to cook. But she hasn't cooked dinner since the day her brother died.

[Castrianno Galante]
I just don't have the energy or motivation to cook. It's been hard to do things that are enjoyable. I was talking to someone and I said, I'm starting to relive September, October, November, December, because those months are all a blur. I went to work, I don't know what I did there, but I was there at work. I came home, and the only thing that I could do at home was sit in front of the TV. And watch the news, looking for any sort of news.

[Tobias]
Lynn became frustrated by a lack of details about September 11th. So she became a leader in a group for family members of victims, called Voices for September 11th. She helps others with questions about the victim’s compensation fund, and has lobbied the U.S. Senate for an independent commission to look at what led to the attacks.

[Castrianno Galante]
I feel that so many things effected what happened that day that we can't take a look at what happened in a vacuum. We're already looking at what happened with the FBI and CIA, which is terrific. But there are other entities, which have been involved as well. Or other areas that impacted that day. Aviation security, immigration issues, border security. It's not just one agency that we can take a look at.

[Tobias]
Lynn says staying involved with 9-11 politics helps her heal. So does surrounding herself with reminders of that tragic day. Flags fly everyday outside her house. She's never without a 9-11 pin from her large collection. And never far away from two items she brought back from an emotional trip to the World Trade Center site in April.

[Castrianno Galante]
We're at St. Paul's, and the firefighter comes and he sees me and he comes and he gives this to me. What it is, is a piece of glass from the south tower. When I find myself getting in a bad mood or getting depressed, I touch it. It makes me feel better.

[Tobias]
Lynn keeps this good luck charm in her purse at all times. She also brought back this angel. People from all over the country sent thousands of items like this to the World Trade Center site. Lynn was drawn to the angel before she turned it over and saw it was made by a boy from West Point, Nebraska. Lynn keeps the angel at home or work - she has 9-11 shrines both places. She's needed more, though, to get through the last year. In February she started seeing a therapist.

[Castrianno Galante]
I had to. There was just no way I could do this without it. It's just too traumatic. The nightmares, and the not sleeping, the lack of motivation, the lack of energy. It was hard. Every month I find myself being able to take back a little bit of my old life. Because my old life, it was the pre-911 life. And now I'm in a post-911 life and I'm trying to define what that is.

[Tobias]
9-11 also redefined the lives of the six Auburn firefighters. For some that started the first week back in Nebraska.

[North]
That whole week I cried off and on. I could walk through my living room and for no apparent reason I could just start crying and my wife would hug me. That went on for a couple weeks. It's over with now but there was a lot, a lot of emotions that ran through your body. Emotions you didn't realize you had.

[Koerner]
You don't take life for granted anymore. It could be gone tomorrow, you never know. You love your family more.

[Edwards]
Ever since then you realize that you're not invincible. Just because you put that little yellow jacket on and that helmet, you're nothing but basically like they were, a target.

[Von Bergen]
There are things that remind me of being there. Smells or sites, or even smoke sometimes.

[Tobias]
Working accidents, or working their day jobs, the firefighters say they think about the World Trade Center experience daily. But in some ways it's still tougher responding to more than 300 local fire and rescue calls a year.

[Thomas]
We were basically finding body parts and bodies of people that we did not know personally. And when we go out on calls here, it's always with somebody that most generally, that we know. And that's tougher than sifting through mounds of rubble finding fingers and toes and hands and feet.

[Tobias]
Three days in New York gave these firefighters a new appreciation for their colleagues on the Auburn Fire Department - who they call every bit as heroic for the work they do closer to home. For their community - which raised $3,000 to fly them east. And for their country - which rallied during one of its darkest hours. Dale Thomas doesn't want us to forget that.

[Thomas]
It seems some of the patriotism and some of the feel good about it has worn off. And it's almost like we're back at square one again. And I'm wondering if that's what the terrorists are waiting for.

[Tobias]
Lynn Castrianno Galante's family won't soon forget her brother. 6-year-old Rosario's middle name is Leonard. 18-month-old Antonia is his goddaughter. Lynn wants her kids to always remember the good times with Uncle Leonard.

[Castrianno Galante]
And I want them in particular to remember their uncle as being someone who loved what he was doing, loved the city he was working in, and died for his country. He didn't volunteer to, but he did. There are a number of things that I want people to remember. People should never forget that we were attacked on our own soil. That it's possible. That we are not impervious to being attacked. And that we need to recognize that. That 3000 people died, and that all those people who died are heroes.

[Tobias]
Seven Nebraskans who will never forget what happened a thousand miles away on September 11th. And hope the rest of us won't either. Reporting for Statewide, I'm Mike Tobias.